I bought this mold from Daiso for $2.80. It’s silicon and can be used for chocolates or any number of other things. I really liked the tiny designs!

All you need to do is melt chocolate, pour in, stick in the fridge then eat 😀

I decided to try making some strawberry chocolate which turned out to be delicious! I melted the white chocolate in the microwave the added a little strawberry Nesquik powder.

After stirring well it turned pink.

It was a little lumpy but more stirring fixed that.

The end result was very cute and so yummy!

They were great to eat on their own but now I want to make a bunch and use them to decorate things! Next stop, adorable cheesecakes 😀

They turned out quite delicious! This recipe is a combination of some he found online and some from the Korean cooking books we had.You need:

• 1 cup  kimchi
• 1/2 an onion
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/3 cup water

We found kimchi at the local Asian grocery store for $4 a jar. I wasn’t really planning to use it for anything else so it was fairly cost effective. Celeste is always telling me to try making my own though which I really should some time! One of my favorite TV shows at the moment is a Korean show called “We Got Married” and on the show quite a few of the couples have tried making kimchi. Their results are usually quite hilarious so for now I think I’ll stick to the $4 tubs XD.

So step one was cut up the kimchi so it was quite fine.

I don’t like spicy things so James drains the juice out of the kimchi so that this version is extra mild. If you like spicy things you can add more juice. If you add juice make sure to add less water.

Next the onion was finely chopped.

Salt and sugar in too.

And flour and water.

Mix it all up until it forms a thick batter.

Put some oil in a pan on a high heat and pour the batter in.

Smoosh it all out so it forms a flat pancake. The batter is quite sticky, so this can be a little difficult.

Let it cook in the oil until the sides crispy up. Take a peak at the bottom to make sure it doesn’t burn!

Flip it over and it should be golden. Flipping can be pretty hard, and if you are doing the one, two, three cartoon pancake flipping method then make sure that all the oil has been absorbed by the pancake 😉 You don’t want that sucker to splash hot oil everywhere when it lands back in the pan!

Cook the other side until it matches and it’s ready to serve!

This made a pretty huge pancake so I ate half and saved the rest for later. You could probably make two with the amount of batter we made, but it’s easier to cook it all in one go.

So delicious, crispy, really quick and easy to make for lunch! Yum!

What do you guys normally do for lunch? I feel like I’m always rushing because I work while I eat most of the time so I don’t cook as much as I’d like to >_<

So every 6 months or so I go on a bit of a health kick. It’s usually brought on when I’m going through photos and I’m like, where am I in all these photos? I only see that guy who looks like he could be my twin from a planet inhabited entirely by edible couches that are both delicious and majorly comfortableOHMYGODTHATSME. This will not stand. So I go to the closet, pull the secret lever, go through the secret passage way, solve the skeletons riddle, past the pit of dispair and find my running shoes. Dust them off, freak out a little because a spider crawled out and nearly touched me, back through the pit, get stuck talking to the skeletons wife (who is a major chatterbox btw, but she brought me a pie so what can I do?) back up the secret passage and through the closet. Then I pop on the shoes, look out the window and chicken out because it looks a little like rain. But you know, I play some wii fit tennis and stuff. IT TOTALLY COUNTS! It has “fit” in the title of the game!!! Then the next day I look for rain, but it’s a beautiful day outside. Stupid sun. Not even a swarm of bees on the horizon. I manage to drag myself down to the street and the little green crossing man lights up with a hint of mockery, as if to say pfft, good luck…and that’s what gets me going. I’LL SHOW YOU CROSSY MAN! I burst into run, get about three steps and twist my ankle.Me: oowowowowoww, Violet, I hurted my self…

Violet: Did you remeber to stretch first?

Me: Stretch? What am I, a woman!?!

Violet: You get no sympathy. And you get to make me dinner.

I sometimes manage to actually run every now and then, and when I do I try my best to eat right, but I still love baking. So before I bake anything this conversation takes place:

Me: Are people actually going to eat these if I make them or am I going to end up eating all of them again?

Everybody else: Oh sure, we’ll eat them, sound delicious.

*Jimmy makes cupcakes*

Me: Cupcakes are ready!

*half a week later*

Me: Nobody is eating any cupcakes!!!!

Violet: Oh yeah, I’ll have one tomorrow

Me: Liar!

Cupcakes: Pssst, Jimmy, eat me and my buddies!

Me: You go to hell cupcakes!!! You go to hell and die in a fire!!

Cupcakes: But we’re delicious!

Me: Oh. Ok.

Violet: Who ate all the cupcakes!?!?!

Mrs. Skeleton: I can make a pie!

Everyone: NO THANK YOU!!!!

And now we come full circle. I needed something that I could bake, would taste delicious but would still be healthy-ish if/when I end up eating them all. These donuts only have something like 300KJ each and since the daily recommended kj intake is around 8500, you can eat 28 of these bad boys a day!!!

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk at room temperature (I can never find buttermilk so I use regular milk with a little bit of lemon juice, but mix them separately so the milk doesn’t curdle.)
• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 50g of room temp butter (if you are really eating healthy then you can sub this with 2 tbsp apple sauce or light margarine)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup blueberries

Combine all your dry ingredients in a sifter and…sift them?

Just make sure that they all mix together well.

add all the wet ingredients except for the lemon juice

Give everything a good stir, THEN stir in a few quick splashes of lemon juice

At this point I poured some of the mixture into a lightly greased donut pan because Violet likes plain donuts, but I like blueberries, so I made 6 plain and 6 blueberry. I have also made mixed berry and mixed berry with cream cheese which was really nice.

Finding a donut pan can be difficult, we luckily came across this one at K-Mart for $9, but if you can’t find one try looking for a mini Bundt Cake pan, they are a little more common since you don’t usually bake donuts.

Never having made donuts before, I had no idea how much batter to put in each little thingy. As it turns out filling it to the brim was too much and mine came out as some kind of donut-cupcake hybrid that I called cupnuts. Because that sounds hilarious.

On the other side they look normal-ish. Really it’s a brilliant system because since the middle has a divit but not a hole you can put a filling like custard or jam or something there!

Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos of the icing process, but here’s the recipe!

• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tbsp whole milk
• A little cream cheese if you like, but again that’s going to add to the Kj count =(
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Dip the donuts into the mixture and rotate as you pull it out to get a smooth finish, then decorate with your favorite toppings!

These ones look a little…deflated. That’s because I forgot to add butter I think. I forgot to add something somewhere along the way and they came out really chewy.

These are great for parties where you can set up a make-your-own donut bar!

I’m so awesome at this being healthy thing. What do you guys think?

Cut up the strawberries into small pieces and put them in a bowl. I used around a punnet and that made 6 pies.Add around 1 and a half table spoons of honey.

Dump in around 4 tablespoons of sugar.

Mix it all together until everything is wet.

Line the muffin tray with pastry. I was in a hurry so I went for a messier… more rustic look XD

Spoon in the strawberry mixture.

Add a pastry top.

Fold in the edges and press them with a fork. Don’t forget to poke some holes in the top too!

Bake for around 20 minutes at 180 degrees C or until the tops are all golden and delicious looking.

Trust me, they’re so delicious you won’t even have time to take a photo of the finished project because SOMEONE will eat them all while watching Game of Thrones… ok yes it was me but they were soooo good *_* Go make and eat now, I command you!

Cook the pasta, for ultimate laziness points use one of those microwave pasta box things. I got mine at a junk store for $2 and it is AWESOME.Add cooked pasta to a bowl.

Add a spoon of tomato paste and one of pesto.

Mix together, add a lot of parmesan and mozzarella if you like a lot of cheese (I do!).

Add optional veges, I like fresh mushrooms or just those cheap frozen cubed veges.

Quit screwing around in the kitchen and get back to work while you eat lunch ;D The total time spent in the kitchen (not including pasta cooking time because I am generally back at the computer during that) is maybe 5 minutes.

It doesn’t look particularly appetising and it’s definitely not presented very well but it tastes good and it’ll get you through until dinner haha!

For something more visually appealing, here’s some packet mix pudding that I made last month. It looks good and I didn’t think it tasted half bad but James thought it was the worst thing in the world and spit most of it back into the sink. Clearly I need to stick to baking pies and macarons!

I’m completely obsessed with watching videos of those Japanese DIY  gummy sweets though, they look like SO much fun to make and if importing wasn’t so insanely expensive I would totally get a bunch of them to experiment with! I need to find a Japanese grocer near here so I can start hunting for them at reasonable prices ^_^ If you haven’t seen the videos you totally need to, just check out RRCheriePie’s Channel. I wasted too much time watching them on the weekend… I probably should have spent that time making better pasta 😉

But the Superbowl isn’t so much just a game of football as it is an event and that’s why in two days an estimated 111 MILLION people will be watching it. It’s gonna be HUGE!!! And with almost any American sporting event, there will be food!!! FOOOOOD!!!!! Since it’s such a big game the food has to be equally impressive.

Image Credit: Yummly.

To get an idea of how impressive the food should be, football announcer John Madden brought back the popularity of the Turducken during the Thanksgiving Day game. For those of you who don’t know, the Turducken is a de-boned chicken, stuffed into a de-boned duck which is then placed inside a de-boned turkey and then cooked, sometimes stuffing or sausage meat is used to fill the cavities not taken up by poultry. Sounds delicious, I know. If you could find a way to get beef in there then it would be my idea of heaven, but that’s was just for the Thanksgiving game!

Image credit Wikipedia.

Sorry to any vegetarian readers, but I’m allergic to fruits and veg (seriously) so meat has become my best friend. I’m getting a little off topic. The Superbowl spread has to be awesome and that’s what I’m here to help you with today! This culinary creation is inspired by a dish from Japan where you can actually order it from Pizza Hut! I have no idea why this was never made on Iron Chef, but ladies and the two or three gentleman who read this blog, I give you…THE PIGS IN A BLANKET PIZZA!!!! *choir of angels*

As you can see it’s a pizza, but the crust is made up of pigs in a blanket!!! Brilliant!!! I’m gonna guide you through making this, but I would like to start by saying that if I could have gone to shops and bought crescent dough for the pigs in a blanket, I would have. It tastes so much better, but it’s pretty hard to make and you can’t buy it in stores here. The reason I didn’t use puff pastry is because I takes about 30 minutes to bake and the pizza takes 15, so it would burn.

You will need:

• Flour
• Oregano
• Salt (I use garlic salt because we love garlic)
• Sugar
• Dry yeast
• Sausages
• Pineapple
• Ham
• Basil
• Tomato paste

Then REALLY start by combining 3 cups flour, 1 tsp oregano, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar and 3 tsp yeast. Yeast varies from type to type, so see how much you will need against how much flour you’re using and whether it needs to be dissolved in water first.

Mix everything up and then make a well in the middle and add 1 and a half cups warm water. Mix that up until it it makes a rough sticky dough.

Pull a stupid face because your hand looks like it’s mutating.

Pop the dough onto a well floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes. I like the folding technique. Once it’s come together in a nice ball, pop it into a well greased bowl and cover it with cling wrap. This needs to sit in a warm area to rise, I fill my sink with about 4 inches of fairly warm water and put the bowl in that. Let it rise for 30-45 minutes until it’s doubled in size.

Does it looks like this? If so, congrats, you didn’t kill the yeast!

At this point you can work out how many sausages you’re going to need.

Deflate the dough by dropping it onto a floury surface once again and then flatten it. At this point you need to work out how much dough is going to be your pizza base and how much is going to be for wrapping your sausages. I put two thirds to the dough and one third to the sausages. This gave me a medium crust and plenty for wrapping.

Roll out your sausage dough into a square (or if you’re an idiot like me then a circle for some reason) and then cut the dough into triangles. This is much easier if your dough is a square…roll your sausages up in a triangle of dough. If you REALLY like your guests then at this point you could also wrap the sausage in bacon and add a little cheese. Mmmmm heart attack-y!

Smooth your pizza dough to fit your pan and place the wrapped sausage around the outside. I used a little bit of water to help them stick.

For my sauce I use tomato paste and a sprinkling of dry basil.

This is going to be a Hawaiian creation, so I added ham and pineapple.

Add some cheese and it’s almost done! Stick it in a preheated fan forced oven at around 170c (330f) for 15 minutes

Done!!!

Just in time for some stupid eating poses!!!

Seriously, it tastes awesome. I meant to brush on an egg wash over the sausage dough, but I was REALLY hungry at this point. Eat the pizza part then dip the pig in a blanket into some ranch/BBQ/tomato sauce, you’re gonna love it! Yummy! Now sit back and enjoy the game. GO PATRIOTS!!!!